Short stories

Tuesday, 3 March 2015

My French Life - Buying the house of our dreams...argh!

(If you would like to read previous posts, please go to My French Life.)

So, the house of
our dreams was going to be in up-market Corme Royal, with its very own 12th century church. Around seven miles from where we were staying in our rented
gite. Little did I realise that finding
a house was only the first step in a long, and incredibly boring process, fraught with traps
for gormless hippy-types whose French was still a little rusty and whose life
experience had been, thus far, as pleasant as a tranquil scene from a Wordsworth poem. Twiddle dee, twiddle dum.

The square in Corme Royal - very posh!

However, undaunted by the huge problems we were yet to
discover...we made a semi-confident offer slightly below the asking price, which
was promptly rejected. “Yes,” said
Anna, our costly estate agent (10%!!), the house is over priced, “but
Mme X has no need to sell quickly, if at all…”

It turned out that the house had, in fact, been on the
market for four years, in which time Mme X had received one (derogatory)
offer. One offer in four years! So, with the logic of French property sales
going over our heads once again, we upped our offer as much as we could, whilst
nervously watching the exchange rate steadily descend.

Sadness.

To cut a (very) long story short, in the end we agreed a
price that would just about cripple us financially, and (more frightening still) stretch our largely fictional
mortgage application to breaking point.
All for the incomparable delight of sitting in an overly spacious office, with an overly important notaire, who treated us to a heart-felt rendition of the forty-page document detailing everything from our full names, date
of birth and shoe size, to the terms and conditions surrounding various
guarantees against termites, building integrity and the presence of lead and
asbestos.

Asbestos?

It was at this point, perched on the edge of our chairs and
on the brink of despair, that several worrying as yet unmentioned ‘minutiae’
were uncovered: The roof was asbestos
(but, apparently, not the ‘dangerous’ type), the wall in the bouanderie was
asbestos, too (type not specified). Some of the paint used in the house was so
laden with lead that we were advised to remove it only whilst wearing
protective clothing and quality breathing equipment, and to ensure that our
children didn’t inhale for a month after such removal. Also, (a minor point) we learned that our toilet
was not connected to the mains, but rather functioned via a ‘fosse etanche’
which was situated under the bathroom and which, according to Mme. X was a state-of-the-art system, and which, according to the notaire, was technically
illegal, unless we had specifically agreed to not having it changed and brought
up to the ‘norme’.

What?*!

There was a pause in
the proceedings, which had my husband and I thinking about backing out of the
whole deal. Especially when we had also
learned that the clause I’d asked for in the agreement which ensured that the house would
be left to the surviving spouse in the event of extreme misfortune (and not immediately divided up between the snapping children), had been omitted!

Mon Dieu!

In the end, being irrepressibly optimistic and a tad gullible, we signed on an infinite number of dotted lines and hoped for the best.

Mme
X looked smug and Mr. X seemed delighted.

“It’ll be fine!” said Al.

“I love you,” I replied.

Much more fun than buying a house!

For better or for worse, the house was ours.
What next? Oh, yes. We needed to rewire it. “How does 14,000
euros sound?” enquired a friend of a friend, who lived in a very big house and
drove a very nice car. “What about
9,000 euros?” offered a fully qualified and above-board English
electrician (no language barrier...). My mouth flapped, Al’s jaw
dropped, and I set about getting more quotes.

Finally, we hired a local French electrician who quoted
6,000 euros and gave us a 10% discount.
Sorted! We arranged the dates
for the work to be completed two weeks before we were due to leave the gite and
move in. Perfect.

About Bev

My name is Bev and I live in SW France in a crumbly old house with a husband who’s keen on renovation, two kids who are going through the French education system (arrrgh), no dogs and no cats.
Bunny on a Bike is not my first book, but it is the first book to be put out into the world. Writing Bunny on a Bike was something I enjoyed doing, (my son is currently asking me whether I like bagels – distracting, in a random kind of way), because it was nice to remember all the ridiculous adventures I had in London and try to recall what it felt like to be young and ready to try anything.
I hope that people who read it will laugh a lot and feel uplifted. That would be wonderful. You can have a look on Amazon Kindle if you would like to.
If you want to get more of an idea of the tone of the book then I suggest you have a look at some of the posts on this blog.
I have since published two mysteries and a prequel to Bunny on a Bike. I will publish my next book (suspense) next week (Oct 2013). All are listed on my blog.
Thanks for visiting my page and I hope you find something you like.